140 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. 



with 100 yearlings in each. When you multiply his 

 railroad fares, freight, cartage and wages by five there 

 is more expense than profit in the transaction. A trip 

 which cost $25 would run up a big bill for five trips, 

 and extra men would have to be put on the road. If 

 you have long trips to make, plant fry, and, if neces- 

 sary, increase your hatching capacity as many times as 

 may be needed. Nature plants fry enough to keep up 

 the stock if man does not interfere. 



I think the yearling heresy was started by Mr. Frank 

 N. Clark, an old personal friend of mine, but with 

 whom I have usually differed on minor points in fish- 

 culture ; but even Mr. Clark has said that he could not 

 rear all his fry to yearlings because of the expense. 

 Then the late Col. McDonald, United States Commis- 

 sioner of Fisheries, got the yearling craze and ham- 

 mered at everybody who did not agree with him. He 

 was an irritable, autocratic man, who could not bear to 

 be opposed, and no one in his employ dared suggest 

 a better way of doing anything. To illustrate this let 

 me quote from the First Annual Report of the Com- 

 missioners of Fisheries, Game and Forests, of the State 

 of New York, for a portion of the year 1895, page 14: 

 "Four years ago the late Colonel Marshall McDonald, 

 then United States Fish Commissioner, writing to one 

 of the staff of this Commission, said of one who was 

 an ardent 'fry' man (i. e., one who believed in planting 

 helpless fry as soon as they were ready to feed) : 'If 

 he chooses to attack the policy of the United States 

 Fish Commission in planting yearling fish, it will sim- 

 ply stamp him as unprogressive and past his period of 

 usefulness.' ' 



This might mean me, or it might mean the Hon. 

 Herschel Whitaker, of the Michigan Fish Commis- 



